The demise of cash

I was up early this morning driving the car to Splott by nine o'clock for its fifty thousand mile service and MOT. I walked back to the edge of the city centre and took the C1 bus which traverses the city from east to west, passing through Canton. I walked the rest of the way home, to collect the veggie bag and some foodbank items left with us to take to church, then called into the Coop to withdraw some cash from their ATM and buy more food bank items to take to St Catherine's. There were eleven of us for the Eucharist. 

It's the first time for months since I last had real currency in my wallet. I needed it on this occasion to pay Hilary for veggies from the churchyard garden bought from her last week. Tap and pay transactions are now common place wherever you are, it's rare to find a place where cash only is necessary. I don't know how Big Issue sellers and street beggars cope with this sea-change in the commercial economy. Gradually bank branches are closing and the number of ATMs is shrinking. Since the pandemic, we've been driven into on-line banking and the abandonment of cash, far too quickly to my mind. Admittedly is more secure than it used to be, but it hasn't prevented the rise of on-line bank fraud and scams, and the impact on older people who are not technologically literate is disturbing.

After the service I went to Chapter to collect this week's veggie bag, and cooked a meal for myself when I returned home. It began to rain while I was catching up on lost sleep after lunch. Then I went to the Coop under an umbrella to get this week's groceries, using a rucksack instead of the trolley, as Clare needed it to get another batch of organic groceries from Beanfreaks. The rain wasn't too heavy so I didn't get soaked. It continued until late in the evening, so I had no incentive to go out again.

The Fountain Choir had a meal together this evening and Clare went out to join the group, leaving me to my own devices. I couldn't find anything I was interested in watching so ended up reading 'La Sombra del Viento' until it was time for bed.